Mobile Pennies

Ad Age's "Will Mobile's Massive Growth Ever Equal Real Revenue?" discussed the issue of whether the growing mobile trend can be monetized via mobile ads.  Currently, online ads receive a substantial premium over mobile ads because they are believed to be more effective, with the CPM for mobile ads averaging $0.75 and $3.50 for online ads. Online ads received similar skepticism at their onset.  Now, online advertising is a huge industry that accounts for a sizable portion of our nation's GDP.  Whether mobile ads can follow suit and capitalize on the global growth of mobile is dependent on whether advertisers will customize their mobile ads and develop rich content or just continue to retrofit online ads for the mobile space with poor results and frustrated users.